Pastor: God Destroyed New Orleans
Agape Press, the publishing division of the American Family Association, issued a press release Friday quoting a New Orleans pastor who celebrates the devastation in New Orleans for wiping out "much of the rampant sin common to the city."Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans in Metairie, said that he warned for years God would pass judgment on the city:
New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now. God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again. ...
It's time for us to stand up against wickedness so that God won't have to deal with that wickedness.
More than 10,000 people are feared dead in Louisiana after the landfall of Hurricane Katrina and six days of severe privation in the flooded city of New Orleans.
Southern Decadence, a yearly gay pride event expected to bring 100,000 people to the French Quarter this year, had been scheduled to occur from Aug. 30 through Sept. 5.
Shanks, who has protested at abortion clinics, the ACLU, and Southern Decadence, told Associated Press in 2004 that legalization of same-sex marriage would doom the city:
One Category 5 hurricane coming up the river will take care of all Sodomite marriages ... I believe this will open the floodgate for God to bring judgment on our land.
He also prophesied an end to murder in New Orleans during a 2004 gathering of Operation Rescue if abortion clinics shut down.
Shanks and some members of his church evacuated to the High Place Campsite in Florence, Miss., according to an Operation Rescue web site affiliated with the pastor.
Kaye Trammell, an assistant professor of communication at LSU, began a Hurricane Katrina weblog as she rode out the approaching storm last weekend in Baton Rouge.She writes in this morning's Washington Post about the experience:
We on-the-scene citizens don't mean to replace journalism. We don't have the resources. But we can provide first-person accounts in our own voices of what is happening.
Because blogs are so easy to create, they will only grow in number, and many will be covering crises in this personal way. Now that bloggers have figured out how to use the medium, it's time for government officials to do the same.
Dying of Thirst in New Orleans
As thousands of evacuees languished in the New Orleans Convention Center for four days, only one authority came to reassure them, according to NBC photographer Tony Zumbado:I went back with Harry Connick Jr. He spoke to them and told them he would do anything he can to help them. They seemed to appreciate that. He's the only person of authority -- believe it or not, a musician -- to go in there and tell them that things are going to be ok.
Connick's upholding a fine tradition of entertainers keeping their heads in disaster, following the legendary Titanic Band and Robin Boltman, the magician who stayed on the sinking cruise ship Oceanos after the captain and crew left for the lifeboats.
Zumbado told NBC Nightly News he saw things so horrific inside the center he wouldn't film them, knowing the network wouldn't broadcast the footage. They found unbelievable stench from human waste and numerous dead bodies, including two babies who had died of dehydration and a teen dead in a freezer, her throat slashed after a rape.
Harry Connick and a journalist were able to get from Baton Rouge to these 15,000 desperate people, as he described on the Today Show. Until late night Thursday, when food and water was brought for the first time since the storm, no one else could manage it.
Connick:
It's easy to get to the convention center, we got there with no problem ... how hard is it to take a truck with water or food for these people? I don't understand. They told these people to go to the convention center for help and it's been five days. It's unbearable
There's a backlash against anyone who expresses anger about this disaster, as if it's just political gamesmanship to angle for the congressional mid-term elections next year. If anger isn't the proper response to babies dying for lack of water in the U.S., I don't know what is.
I'm getting hammered by some people for my proposal that liberals and conservatives stage comparable relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina victims.One of the conservative bloggers I approached with this idea sent an e-mail that's still cooling off:
You're sick ... trying to make a competition out of other's suffering. You should be ashamed of yourself.
As I told him, competing to outraise another group is a routine charity practice. Look at all the weblogs in competition on TLB's Blog for Relief page. A big reason to rank blogs publicly like that is to spur people to dig deeper into their pockets and help the home team.
Liberal Blogs for Hurricane Relief has raised $127,000 in 36 hours. That's not bad, but I think we could raise a lot more by having conservatives to challenge us. Besides, any reason to help these people is a good reason. I was glad to discover TLB's efforts this afternoon and see the reported donations of $500,000 from a largely conservative roster of weblogs.
In the interest of balance, I did receive a nice e-mail from Hugh Hewitt, the conservative author whose next book is titled Demoncraps: How to Get Around God's Prohibition Against Abortion When Liberalism is Detected in the Womb.
Go to the Back of the Bus Line
Today at the Superdome:Friday's evacuations began at about 9 a.m., halted for about an hour and then resumed two hours later. At midday, the evacuation was interrupted briefly when school buses rolled up so some 700 guests and employees from the Hyatt Hotel could move to the head of the line to be evacuated -- much to the amazement of those who had been crammed in the stinking Superdome since Sunday.
"How does this work? They (are) clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of us?" exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The National Guard made him get back in with the unwashed masses as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed guests with their luggage.
Ed Schultz just made the understatement of the year on his radio show: "This is not going to help race relations in this country."
CNN.Com has begun a Hurricane Katrina survivor's database:If you were in Katrina's path and want to post your name here, please send an e-mail to the Hurricane Victims Desk. For each person you are reporting for the list, include first and last name, age, hometown, state and a brief message. You may also include a phone number or e-mail address where those on the list may be reached.
Since it went online a few hours ago, 380 names have been added.
Rex Hammock has compiled links to several other databases and Internet sites set up to connect survivors and their families and friends.
Rabid Ideologues for Hurricane Relief
The Drudge Retort belongs to a large network of liberal weblogs that's trying to raise $1 million for urgent Hurricane Katrina relief. Donations go to the Red Cross for the specific purpose of helping thousands of people affected by a disaster of biblical proportions -- 90,000 square miles of four states were devastated by the storm, thousands may be dead, and more are dying by the hour. Site visitors have donated almost $100,000 in one day, which is good but still a long way from the goal.Liberal bloggers who want to support this effort can link to the donation page for Liberal Blogs for Hurricane Relief.
A perpetual argument on partisan political weblogs is whether liberals or conservatives are more generous. This seems like the ideal opportunity to provide some evidence in one direction or the other.
In order for this to happen, we need a network of conservative sites, such as one on Blogads led by Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt, to organize a charity effort to rival ours. They can even use the same infrastructure we did -- Henry Copeland of Blogads told me in e-mail he's ready to help, and they can secure donations through DropCash.
If anyone reading Workbench is a fan of Malkin, Hewitt, or the other members of that conservative network, urge them to take up this challenge, as I'm doing this morning in e-mail.
There aren't many instances where the venomous political climate in this country works to our advantage. This could be one of them.
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